Fault lines
by A Gaggle of Geese
Summary: Saki Okada and Sarah Davis were different people. Except, they weren't. [OC insert]


**Fault lines**

Summary: Saki Okada and Sarah Davis were different people. Except, they weren't. [OC insert]

(The OCs appearing in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people is coincidental.)

 **Soul meets body**

 _I want to live where soul meets body  
And let the sun wrap its arms around me and  
Bathe my skin in water cool and cleansing  
And feel  
Feel what it's like to be new_

 _'Cause in my head there's a Greyhound station  
Where I send my thoughts to far off destinations  
So they may have a chance of finding a place where they're  
Far more suited than here _

\- Soul meets body, Death Cab for cutie

 **. . . . . . . . .**

Partly out of a blossoming rebellious streak and partly because of the need of quenching from the unbearable warmth, Saki ran inside.

The running, which she did more and more these days, quickened by a sense of delicious strangeness, from the fine ribbing of Konoha's trees, the high-ceilinged stores, with partial view over the velvety curtains and finely lined shelves, transformed the world into a treacherous swirling mass.

She hesitated momentarily before the house, closing her eyes against the holler of children outdoors. An orange glow hung over the crests of the oaks, the sun glimpsed against the branches and foliage, turning the leaves a nutty brown. Then her hands tightened around the handle and her skin became scorched with cold.

She walked seven or eight steps. The flowers that she had put on the windowsill swayed slightly in the breeze that came through the interstice, and it bit at Saki's face. She walked directly towards her door, her limbs stiff and rendered useless and only allowed herself to breathe out when she was confined within the sweet, safe walls of her bedroom.

Saki wanted the world to listen to her. Whereas her sister's side of the room was cluttered with unclosed books, unemptied rubbish bins and an unmade bed, forming a stew of disorder, Saki's side consisted of structures and systems.

Her books were arranged just so, lined on top of her white cupboard, that they stood perfectly against the wall, in alphabetical order, and she'd made sure her covers had no wrinkle in them. Her dolls were pressed in the furthest corner of the room, aflame with the dwindling golden after-shine of the sun.

Hiyoko's possessions were strewn all over the floor, peeking out from under her bed, riddled with old dust and she'd thrown most of her old toys and dirty bottles on top of her wardrobe, where they were slowly disintegrating with every coming year. Saki's most prized possessions weren't anywhere to be seen or shown; they were well hidden secrets that nobody else could touch.

She had a secret drawer in her desk, which was to be opened by cleverly pressing down the iron joint, and here she kept the rabbit skull she'd found when she was six, and the snail shells from the back door.

A rusty tin box was hidden under her bed, under a rotting, removable floorboard. The treasures therein dated back a couple of years, but some were recent as well; she'd kept the pearl necklace that was originally the mother's, a notebook written in an script and a code Saki had invented by herself, the red box with matches and the stack of money she'd stolen from Hiyoko's purse.

They weren't any shameful secrets, to any outsider at least, but to Saki they held a world of worth that warranted close observation and a suitable hiding place.

She arranged herself on her bed, ignoring the popping of her joints as they relaxed, pressing her nose into her pillow. She sighed into the scent of beard moss and sweat.

She could not remain here.

She should make plans, Saki knew, but she did nothing. She propped herself up, hand under her chin and waited until pins and needles twinged in her biceps. There were various possibilities, but each one was as improbable and undesirable as the next.

She had little to no money, and no interesting aunts and uncles spread out over the Lands, for she'd never heard the mother speak of them. In fact, she thought they wouldn't be staying in Konoha, if they did have family left.

There was nothing holding Saki back from leaving, except the creeping fear of an unknown future and the realization that she had nowhere to go; if she went, something bad might happen.

Saki pleased herself with excuses, persuading herself with the idea that she would leave _someday._ Until then, she would wait patiently and prepare, but as the days went on it became clearer that someday was many months, and even years, away.

There was little that prevented her from leaving, and there was nothing that made her stay.

Nobody would particularly care if she left; Hiyoko cared for herself and the mother was so far removed from anything resembling a parent that it did not matter whether she was present or not.

She could not remain here, but there was nothing to go or return to, and nothing that would help her make a decision. She was stuck in an intermission, a little piece of gray where the lines blurred and she didn't know on which side of the line she stood, but orderly Saki knew she would not leave without a plan.

She waited, and drifted.

Hiyoko came, well after six, smelling of cigarettes. Saki was shaken out of her reverie – a vivid, oblivious daydreaming that brought her to a world rich with details. It was always a torture to come back; torn from a world of her own making, thrust into a world that had been made for her, without her permission or consent. It was a loss that resounded from deeply within her.

Hiyoko plopped herself on top of her bed, stretching her legs and breathing in deeply through her nose. Her chest wheezed with every breath.

"Mother's not coming home. She got a new boyfriend – hope this one pays the bills," her sister said. Her face was placid, startling in its whiteness. Moths circled the lamp that stood on her night table. Saki wondered what it was like to be such an insect, twirling and swirling, searching in the air.

To be a moth was to have a life so futile that it was almost not worth living, obeying the harmful appeal of the light where it was the easiest to be caught by predators. To put yourself in such a position, was the epitome of stupidity, Saki thought.

"So she's staying at his house?" Saki asked, and her heart skipped a beat, as if it was gasping in exhalation. She hoped it was – it was good to have someone share her relief.

"Think so."

"I can make dinner," Saki offered, but it wasn't out of kindness. Hiyoko wouldn't make her a meal, since she was content with a glass of cool water, or some beer. That was the reason that her sister's skin was so translucent and so tightly spun over her hollow cheekbones; Hiyoko simply didn't eat.

Her sister didn't react, so Saki found herself shrinking away from that quiet room and into the kitchen. The kitchen was lush and quiet, and held the faint smell of forming mildew and ash. Saki surveyed the unemptied ashtray on the counter, with fractionally lowered eyelids. Her stomach churned, nauseated by the prospect of yet another evening of canned meat.

"Are you going to school tomorrow?" Hiyoko asked, slouching against the door frame on soft white socks. The smoke of her cigarette billowed up. It felt almost dreamlike to watch the grey swirl and twirl above her sister's head, as if it was alive. She wondered, as she did on the rare occasions her sister seemed interested in what she did, if it was this particular moment that she would remember for the rest of her life.

"I was planning to," Saki said, though she wasn't sure whether that was the truth. She was under no obligation not to lie, after all.

Hiyoko hummed, pinching her lower lip between thump and index finger. She shifted and the Konoha headband on her arm glinted in the rays of the evening sun. It came to Saki then – the solution she'd been waiting for, flying at her like pin pricks and needles; strong enough to hurt, and soft enough to kill when pressed down on certain places. It was something she'd known for a while, but hadn't truly wanted to consider.

"I was thinking of joining the Academy," Saki said meekly, casually, watching Hiyoko through thin eyelashes. She had seemed more interested in the letters and cards that were strewn across the counter inbetween revision notes, unwashed plates, and unpaid bill forms, but at her words, Hiyoko's dark eyes flew up.

"Good luck with fighting Mother about it," she said, grimacing slightly. "You know how long I argued with her about it – one kid in the shinobi arts is bad enough."

"I really want it."

"It's not such a good life," Hiyoko said briskly, with a hint of a warning in her voice. "It's hard out there, little sis' and I don't think you-"

"You and I both know that I want to leave this hellhole," Saki said. There was a silence that tiptoed into room, slinking around them like a predatory feline. The words were out in the open, a confession of her jagged insides, but Saki wanted them there, positioned between them. "At the age of twelve, registered as a Konoha shinobi, I'll be regarded as an adult and can rent an apartment with the money I'll earn. That's what I'm going to do."

It was the first part of a plan. It felt good to have the first step of _someday_.

"You're already too old. You're nine and the Academy starts at six."

"I can graduate in three years. I'm sure of it."

Hiyoko drew a calloused hand through her hair, snagging on a loose knot, while the other pushed the cigarette into the ashtray. She regarded Saki silently.

"I'll talk to Mother," she said, easing herself to stand. Her eyes were lamp-like. She turned around with a frown and disappeared down the hallway, towards their room. Saki waited for the padding of footsteps, but found fickle, dread silence.

She got the canned meat out of the cupboard with a sigh. She would simply wait until _someday_ became _now_. She would wait until her own insignificance was dispelled and real events happened to her and she had a plan.

She would wait until she could leave.

 **. . . . . . . . .**

 _(it would all be over soon)_

The bath was warm and scalded her skin. Someone murmured outside, but she couldn't discern whose voice it was. It could have been a man's or woman's.

The door handle rattled.

"Sarah!"

She tried not to look at the pills on the highest shelf, but found her gaze inexplicably drawn to it. They were round and white; little don't-know-what-they're-made-of-pills, so appealing to her tongue.

"Sarah, for the last time, we have to go."

She stepped up and opened the door, almost jammed her head against her husband's chest. She could see the barely suppressed annoyance in Ben's eyes, and the tightness of his mouth. His new boots gleamed freshly. Ben was a handsome youth, graceful and slender around the shoulders, with too-wide eyes and a soft chin.

"Greed," she couldn't help but point out, gesturing to his feet. "You could have saved some lives with that money."

"Enough." He grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the bathroom. His grip was tight around her wrist, so she spun herself around his chest, pressing her bare breasts against his tie.

"I still have to get dressed," Sarah said, smiling sweetly. "Don't be so negative. They'll wait with cutting the cake, until we get there."

"This is your sister's wedding," he hissed at her, but followed obligingly as she pulled him into the bedroom.

"I can't go out naked," she said, and then, because she wanted to be cruel, "And my sister will not care whether we are present or not."

Sarah thought of the pills on the highest shelf. She could almost feel them dissolve on her tongue, dragging away from the world, into her higher conscious, into a world that she could create and nurse, into something better.

"Kiss me," she said and Ben did. His lips were hot and scalded her skin, but she pulled him closer, until she was certain his heat would set her aflame. She relished in it.

 _(it would all be over soon)_

 _ **. . . . . . . . .**_

Saki had been lying in semi-darkness for several hours, nursing various unrealistic fantasies in her head, before the crunch of footsteps and voices made her get up. She parted the curtains and the morning sun momentarily blinded her. She lowered her eyelids until it was reduced to a mere glare and could almost pretend that she was on another planet.

The voices came from the living room, not loud, and soft enough to be intelligible. Saki had the sudden desire to hide under the covers and sink away into the fabrics.

The door opened and two figures emerged; Hiyoko, with a glint of solid steel under her Chuunin vest, and the mother, a hollowed out creature with an arched back. Her hands were locked in front of her chest, as if praying. Saki could gauge nothing by their stances.

It was Hiyoko who broke the asphyxiating silence. "She agreed."

Saki didn't dare smile and said tersely, "Good. Thank you." And then, to make some sorts of amends, she said to the mother, "I'll do my best."

"Do try not to get killed," the mother said. Ominously, there was no variation to her tone, but Saki nodded. There was an another silence, broken only by the electrical buzzing of the refrigerator down the hall. Saki wondered if the electricity bills had finally been paid.

"Okay," the mother said, looking around the room. Her gaze lingered on the dolls by Saki's bed and her eyes were tight and hard. Saki wondered if it was anger that she saw – or something else, like regret. "Okay. Sho's waiting for me."

She looked as if she had more to say, but Saki did not wish to know why the mother was never home and carried the perpetual smell of alcohol. Or rather, she did not want to be told. The truth was already there in her head, crawling up in her fibers, but she did not want to see.

When the mother had disappeared down the hallway, Hiyoko said, "Do apply yourself. I had to pull some strings to get you in, y'know." Her voice was breathy.

"I will graduate as soon as I can," Saki promised. The first beginnings of a plan were beginning to form. She shifted, and the removable floorboard creaked in protest under her weight.

Hiyoko shot her one last look, hard and decipherable, and then turned on her heels. Saki was glad to see her go, ghosting towards the kitchen.

She opened the curtains and allowed the meager morning light seep in, creating square white shapes upon the carpet. She squinted at the standing birches, that stood by the array of trees. Something in her felt cold and powerful; a subtle balance had shifted, with Saki in its midst.

She would be free.

 **. . . . . . . . .**

Saki's hands were shaking.

While she sat in the lavatory, stuffed between paper-clapped sinks, feeling her tiredness take root at last, but unwilling to rise and go home, she closed her eyes. There was moisture burning behind her eyelids.

"You're really bad at this, aren't you?" the tallest girl had said to her. She had a pleasant face, with wide eyes and a skin full of freckles. Her face was tanned, but in the shallow white light of the bathroom, she looked almost colorless. "You're supposed to hold a kunai like this."

She showed her the grip, thumb on top of the handle, pointed towards the blade, while her pinky finger rested on the round end of the kunai. It gleamed mockingly. There came a peal of laughter from her friends, and Saki didn't dare smile back.

"Thank you," Saki said, though she did not feel very grateful. She had the strange thought to jam the blade through the girl's sternum, just to see her hurt.

"Don't know how you're ever going to become a ninja, y'know," the girl continued, eyes sparkling. They were dark and tight. "You're really quite weak."

Saki didn't owe them any explanations; she intended to graduate and survive, because she had good reason to. It was a prospect of rebirth, a new start. She was older than them, but lower in skill and class rank, and they teased her. Friendships weren't easy to cultivate.

When Saki was silent for too long during break, or glanced at them, Tayaka, followed by her circle of social acquaintances, would say: "Not too long, and she'll back out."

When Saki didn't hit the target, or was kicked into the dust during one of the taijutsu spars, Tayaka said: "She'll die on the battlefield. If she even graduates."

"Let's teach her a lesson, shall we?" the girl said. "Come on."

They cut away her hair; chopped off every long strand, running their fingers through, snagging on a loose knot, yanking and tugging. They weren't very gentle with her, smacking Saki's head against the wall until it lolled off.

She wanted to tie them up and set them on fire. She tried to scratch them with her jagged fingernails, but they wouldn't give up, so Saki lay still and watched the ceiling, which was a great plate of white peeling paint.

Saki began to cry. She felt quite silly doing so, and tried to wipe them away with her hands, which felt greasy from the dirty floor.

In a fit of petulance, Saki kicked the rubbish bin by the door, until it tumbled. She said she hated them, all of them, with their pretty well-bred bodies and their stupid ninja minds. A swaggering recklessness was taking hold in her chest. She kicked the stalls open and dumped rubbish into the toilet.

In the poor light, the room was pulsing with the rhythm of her own heart. Saki caught sight of her own face in the dirty mirrors; a tanned face, under a shallow sheen of sweat. Her hair, roughly cut, stuck up like a crest at the back of her head and she fingered the shortened strands with an angry pounding heart.

She turned on the water and splashed some on her face, feeling roused from the earlier lightness. The mirror showed the strange look she bore; her eyes were bright, full of rigidity, of savagery.

Saki gave the rubbish bin one last kick and left.

 **. . . . . . . . .**

 _(it would all be over soon)_

The morning sun slipped through the foliage, dappling them in rays of golden light, as they sat beneath the twisted oak tree. Her father's new meadows unfolded wide and curling, with a meandering river that she could hear growling in the distance. Narrow cannels that diverted from the river, glistening at her feet.

The wild animals came at early dawn to drink. She'd been close enough to touch a fox once; its rusty fur slick with dew and near enough for her to graze her fingertips on that sleek spine. She kept still, stuck in reverie of this wonderful miracle – this feral beast – for the slightest movement would have send it bolting for the woods.

A butterfly landed upon her sleeve, flapping its white wings slowly. Sarah reached out and held it up in the air, studying it, with a slight smile.

Ben slapped her thigh. "Enough of that. Don't be mean."

"I could crush it," Sarah said, as the butterfly tried to escape her grasp. Her hair drifted into her eyes and she wiped it away with a fluent motion. "It's just an animal."

Ben's eyes were bright and she could discern them through her eyelashes. From her position, she saw his hands, balled at his sides, white-knuckled with force. She wondered what she looked like to him; an abominable creation, never meant to be born. That's what her father had said ever so frequently.

She twisted her fingers. One of the wings broke off and remained plastered against the oil of her fingers. The butterfly fell to the ground and twitched by her knee. Her floral print dress fluttered against it.

"What the hell," Ben said, rising towards his feet. Sarah tilted her head, and allowed her hair to fall like a waterfall over her shoulder, adopting a look of mild curiosity. He gave her one last glance, and she pondered whether she found contempt and horror in his gaze, or something else entirely, before Ben turned around and stormed towards the house.

Sarah wondered if she bore the look of eternal damnation. She reached out and crushed the still-twitching butterfly under her palm, before she leaned back and enjoyed the sun on her face.

 _(it would all be over soon)_

 _ **. . . . . . . . .**_

"Where is Hiyoko?"

Saki had been bandaging the wounds on her hands, letting her eyelids droop ever so frequently to try and get rid of the tiredness in her chest. The bruising on her face was rather prominent, and the scratches on her hands shocking, given it was inflicted by girls three years younger than her.

"She's on a mission," Saki said briskly to the mother, nodding at the hastily scribbled note on the counter.

The mother, who Saki thought was wrapped in some fabricated misfortune, frowned. Her skin seemed bleak, between the contrasts of her fraying, grey tunic and her hair, the same brown color as Saki's own. There were small puncture wounds on her arms, with the sickly pallor of someone who hadn't slept in quite a while.

"Money," the mother said, stepping closer, until Saki could see the whites of her eyes. There was a bruise above her eyebrow, much like Saki's own face, and there was a spray of blood on the fabric of her shoulder, like too much red paint.

Saki wondered who of the many men it had been this time and preferred not to have it explained. She stood irresolutely, wishing to be far away from here. "You need to pay the bills," she said. "Hiyoko will be gone for three weeks, at the very least. We won't manage."

A hand reached out, hovering in front of her face, with dirt under the jagged nails. "Money," the mother said again. Her voice was breathy, and slightly hoarse. If there was no perpetual hunger churning in Saki's stomach, she might have felt pity.

"For what?" she spat out, drawn thin by the twinging of the abuse and her seemingly unreachable desires. "For another bask of drugs? You're not getting any."

She hadn't seen the hit. For a moment, the world was silent, with the mother's angry, tired eyes staring out from her sickly thin face, and the next, Saki's cheek was aflame. Her knees gave out and she tumbled over the wooden floorboards.

The mother's nails racked over her skin, scraping over her bruise. " _Filthy bitch_ ," she spat, saliva dripping onto Saki's face. She grabbed her hair and bashed her head against the floor. Saki moaned silently, the world blurring in front of her eyes, with sound ringing deafeningly in her ears.

"Where's the money-" The voice was distorted, as if she was being submerged into water. The mother was tearing away her vest, hands roaming over her body. Saki lay still and watched the pulsing room, spots beginning to appear on her vision.

The hearth seemed to dissolve when she stared at it directly, and the window above it, she didn't quite remember. Or rather, she remembered it at a different place. Perhaps Ben would know, if she asked him -

The mother bumped into her, thrust her away with a startling fluent motion for such a small, skinny woman. Saki trembled with the tremors of the floorboards as the mother stalked out of the house and flinched at the slamming door. She was nauseous with fear.

She reached out to the ceiling, swallowing against a set of burning tears. There was warmth rising from her skin. The convulsion of the muscles in her throat was almost audible.

Saki hugged herself and rocked, before she started crawling. She kicked herself towards the bedroom, locked herself in and rolled onto the covers. Only there, safe between the walls of her room, did she allow herself to weep. There was no comfort she could find in the fabric of her duvet, or pillows, or the sight of Hiyoko's messy bed.

That was empty, as it had so frequently been. She bravely rose to her feet, wobbled, and dropped herself onto the bedsprings, which let out an aggravating squeaking sound in protest.

Lying there, she could no longer pretend that the world was not vicious or mean-spirited. She could no longer hide in her own head, which pounded vigorously with pain, and escape the notion that everyone, at a minimal estimate, lied, schemed and betrayed.

Saki wept, as the memories skittered through, helplessly, as a mockery. A moth fluttered near her face, and she reached out, swatted it away. The motion was so fluent, and faster than any of her hits had been in spars, that it promptly caught the insect.

One of its wings broke off. She watched it twitch, before she reached out and crushed it, before she leaned back and closed her eyes against the pain.

 **. . . . . . . . .**

The sun threw down its comforting yellow patch, and Saki could not focus her eyes on Kazuki-sensei, but found herself lost in idle daydreaming. The peeling paint on the window-sill, the parallelograms of white light on the tiles, the soft clicking of her prim shoes – it seemed to wait for her to reach out and say something, to prevent her thoughts from only resounding in her head.

"I would appreciate your attention next time, Okada," Kazuki-sensei said. There was no kindness in his eyes, but it felt insignificant. Her head seemed swollen, stuffed with cotton.

Saki blinked and drooped her head. For the rest of the lesson, she kept her eyes firmly trained on his desk, studying the intricate designs in the wood. From the back of the class came a peal of aggravating laughter, and she could almost picture Tayaka's vicious grin.

"Don't worry," said a boy, who came up to her through the throng of bodies, as they were shepherded outside for their break. "I was not paying attention either." He had beady eyes and short, little lips that made his words come out clipped.

Saki opened her mouth, but no sound came out, so she closed it again. The boy twinkled at her, guiding her by her elbow towards the unoccupied set of swings under the cluster of trees. There, he put a leaf into her hand.

"I believe sensei was speaking about the chakra exercise," he said. He leaned back on his arms, and placed the leaf on his forehead. Saki stared at him, too tired to think.

"Come on, try," the boy said, and then he added, "My name is Yasu, if you were wondering."

Saki hadn't been, but she did not say so. She peered over his head, but could not find Tayaka's face anywhere in the crowd.

"Looking for those girls, aren't you? They're giving you trouble."

"I'm fine," Saki said, drawing a sigh from him. "They're alright."

"They cut your hair."

"It's just hair. It will grow back."

"I think you look pretty with or without," Yasu said, smiling at her. His teeth were a little crooked. "Let's try the leaf exercise."

Saki put it on her forehead, as she had done many times in the classroom before. She felt a faint feeling of nostalgia, a strange yearning for a lost life, as she was sitting under the trees, the grass tickling her knees.

"My name is Saki," she said, after a while. The leaf drifted towards the ground. "But I guess you knew that."

Yasu put another leaf on his face, and it stayed perfectly still on his nose, balancing there as if no force of nature could ever pluck it off. "Want to be friends?" he said, turning towards her.

Saki hesitated. Her stomach was constricting, and her legs felt weak, but she found herself nodding vigorously, and drew his hand, for safety or comfort, she didn't know. They sat in silence, and Saki kept her gaze on Yasu's face, which was becoming more pretty the longer she studied it.

"Ben," she wanted to say, but something convulsed in her chest. Her bones were breaking in on each other, and there was nothing to give her any relief.

"Saki, let's go inside," Yasu said, swatting away a fly from his lap. He gathered the leaves in one hand and crumpled them between his fingers. Her chafed face hurt, but she allowed herself to be ushered back to the classroom. Tayaka came past her, eyes glinting, but Saki didn't look at her.

It felt like a start.

 **. . . . . . . . .**

Sometimes there were no warnings.

HIYOKO OKADA, CHUUNIN OF KONOHA, DECEASED IN ACTION – it was on top of the telegram; red, glaring letters.

Sometimes there was nothing at all – nothing but utter silence. Something cold awakened in Saki's chest, as if something vital there froze and didn't unfreeze. Her heart pounded and she felt her breath quicken under her panic, but she could focus on nothing but her sister's name on the paper.

"Is this real?" she asked. Her voice sounded smooth, like water running, but distant, as if she wasn't fully registering her own voice.

Saki had been standing in the kitchen, disinterestedly letting her gaze roam over the bottle of pills, to the stack of unpaid bills she had neatly arranged, when there came a knocking at the door.

She didn't feel like opening it. There was no love left in her heart; it was a bitter, hard muscle that did its work but nothing more. Her fingers, blue from bruising, twinged with every motion, so she kept still, silent and watchful, for there was no one to give her any relief.

The knocking continued and became louder. She moved through the room, the floorboards creaking in protest under her weight.

"Yes?" Saki said, staring up at the face of the visitor. It was a young man on the verge of adulthood, but not quite there yet; gangly, with slender shoulders and red zits on his too-large forehead. He didn't smile.

"My name is Raidou Kagura." He bowed once, his back arched bowlike. When he straightened again, his green eyes seemed incredibly deep. "Is your mother home?"

"No," Saki said bluntly, but she wasn't quite certain if that was the true. The door to the mother's bedroom was closed, but she'd seen the white powder on the table and the lazily thrown pills on the bathroom floor. "Any message you have for her, you can give for me. Got bills?"

The boy shook his head and pressed his teeth into his lower lip. "I was Hiyoko's teammate."

"She's on a mission. She won't come home for another week. You can come back then."

Saki went to close the door, but Kagura grabbed it before it fell into its lock. The skin around his eyes was red. Something cold awakened in Saki's chest, but she stifled it, even as her heart began to pound.

"I'm sorry," he said. He gave her a paper and she stared at the red letters on top of it: HIYOKO OKADA, CHUUNIN OF KONOHA, DECEASED.

"It is real. She was a good teammate," Kagura continued, his voice shaking, when she looked up again. "She stayed behind to sacrifice herself for us – f-for the mission. She was an honorable shinobi."

He reached into bag and pulled out a red headband. The symbol of Konoha glinted in the afternoon sunlight, dappling the metal in golden aftershine. "This was hers."

Saki opened her mouth, but it was as if she was in a dream, for there came no sound, and she wouldn't have known what to say even if she could speak. The red letters seemed to glint accusingly at her.

Saki moved to close the door and this time the boy didn't stop her.

She walked a few steps, weaved and swayed, and then lay the telegram in front of the mother's bedroom door, which was closed and presumably locked.

After that, she went to her bedroom, keeping her gaze steadily averted from Hiyoko's side of the room, and pulled her pillow over her face. She breathed in, staring out at the darkness, listening to the noisy fluttering of the moths by the window.

A flash, a sting of cold metal against her palm and the moths were dead. Her kunai clattered to the floor, but Saki only sighed and didn't muster the effort to pick it back up.

Sometimes there were no warnings.

 **. . . . . . . . .**


End file.
